


thou shalt not suffer

by Anonymous



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29519952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: four times Hansel learned about Mina's magic and one time he was grateful for it.(Archive 2013)
Relationships: Hansel/Mina (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters)
Kudos: 3
Collections: Anonymous Fics





	thou shalt not suffer

**Author's Note:**

> written for porn battle prompt: _Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Hansel/any, magic_

(i)

"Come on," he hisses at her. He almost sounds angry. "You healed me. You healed me. You can do this."

He swims in and out. She can feel the wound but worse she can feel the black poison of Muriel's magic threatening to web and stick through her veins, and a breath eases out with wet finality. "Had...poultice," she tells him wearily. The man is so damn stubborn. He bristled like a damned wet cat when he found she'd healed him, and now he seems to be in a temper over her inability to use magic.

"You need your wand?" His warmth leaves her for a moment and she moans softly, petulantly in her throat. She deserves a moment of kindness as she slips away, doesn't she? She's endured a preposterous amount at the hands of humans. Harassment. Suspicion. Threats of gruesome murder. Can't the man at least hold her head in her final moments of pain? She's being unreasonable, and a sleepy, frightened thread of amusement slips through her. She really would have liked it if he'd stayed. She would've liked to mean something to someone in her last moment.

But then life jolts through her. She feels her fingers again, feels him curling her hands around the wand. "Come on," he says. "Fucking heal yourself, come on. We haven't finished this conversation."

"You are..." She slips away briefly. Warm, spreading sunrise magic. Yes. She can touch this. Yes. This is going to hurt. "A very unreasonable man," she whispers, and he mutters something under his breath. "Very lucky you are so good looking."

She draws on her wand. She will break her wand with this. Amber light sparks down her nerve endings, and she opens her mouth on a scream as she forces Muriel out.

(ii)

And then she wakes up and of course Hansel is not there.

Gretel is. Gretel sits cross-legged on a chair beside the bed, her bruises fading and her hair in a soft disarrayed rope over her shoulder. She glances up and smiles swiftly.

"You're awake," she says easily. "We were worried."

Mina tries to divine Gretel's thoughts from her face, but Gretel's eyes are careful. Gretel has been hunting witches for just as long as her brother, but Mina remembers Hansel telling her it was his sister who insisted on an examination.

"How long did I sleep?" she asks. Her voice is slurred with grogginess. Gretel rises, setting aside the long curved blade she has been polishing, and approaches.

"Two days," she says. "You made a real ruckus."

Mina blinks and then sighs gratefully as Gretel supports her head, helping her drink. "Ruckus?" she asks, baffled. " - Muriel is dead," she adds before Gretel can answer. She must be, or neither Mina nor Gretel would be alive, but she needs to hear the words.

Gretel nods. The water is cool and pleasant, the sweetest thing Mina has ever tasted. As she gently moves to lay Mina's head down, Gretel hesitates. Her fingertips smooth away sweat-damp strands of hair. "I'm glad you survived," she says.

Mina's lips twitch wryly. "As am I," she says. Gretel grins, looking young, and Mina touches her wrist with a weak hand. "And I am glad that you are alive," she says, infusing her thready tone with all of her sincerity. Gretel's smile softens and she dips her head.

"Both of you?" Mina adds, sounding more uncertain than she meant.

"Yeah, I'm still kickin'."

The voice interrupts them from the doorway. Gretel straightens smoothly as though she'd known all along he was there, but Mina would have jumped if she had the strength for it. Hansel enters the room with a rangy stride, setting up a sloppy pyramid of firewood and crouching before the heavy stone fireplace to stoke up the embers. Mina squints, trying to identify her surroundings. Once a rich place, it is clearly now run down - abandoned, she amends as she sees leaves creeping in at the narrow window. The blankets, though, are good quality.

"Well," Gretel says dryly. "I'll leave you two alone." Mina cannot read the speaking look the siblings share, but Hansel narrows his eyes and flicks up one corner of his mouth, and Gretel rolls her eyes and leaves the room with the empty bowl.

Mina does not know what to say.

After he finishes rebuilding the fire Hansel stands. Their eyes meet across the room and he wipes his hands off on his coat, still not speaking, and slowly crosses the room.

Mina lays her hands, one over the other, atop her blanketed lap. She can feel her nerves building. He drops into the chair that Gretel had occupied, leather pants creaking, splay-legged and frowning. His thumb rubs a circle over a seam of his coat. Mina would be comforted he wasn't touching a gun if she didn't have the feeling he hid a great many weapons in that coat.

"So," she said finally. "Are you still very angry with me?"

Hansel looked at her in naked surprise. "Angry?" His tone was guarded.

"Please," Mina said, losing her patience. "Do not dissemble. You are not any good at it. Have you forgiven me for my magic?"

Hansel's face goes shuttered. "Why not?" he asks. She isn't comforted; his tone is sardonic. "Muriel says white witches are very different."

Mina thinks, a little hurt, that this is a very disagreeable man. It is a shame she likes him so much.

From outside, someone kicks the wall.

Both Mina and Hansel look up, startled.

"Sorry!" Gretel's voice calls airily, now further down the hall than the kick. "Dropped something!"

Hansel scrubs a hand over his face. "Ah, hell," he says, and Mina blinks and looks back at him. "You saved our lives back there," he adds. "At the sabbath. Not just with the gun, but with the..."

Mina fidgets her hands. It is discomfiting to be bedbound. She's always had to care for herself. "The grimoire was tremendously helpful," she says.

He makes a strange face. "Yeah," he says. "My mom's book."

It had never been said in so many words. "Your mother was a witch," she says. "Your sister could be a mighty white witch herself." She flicks her gaze towards the door - Gretel is so inscrutable, it is difficult to tell if she desires anything or nothing of the sort. "How can you hate me for witchcraft?"

"I don't hate you," he says instantly. Mina is simultaneously pleased and confused. Harshly after a second he adds, "you did a damn stupid thing and nearly got yourself killed."

"I saved your life," she says. She manages some tartness. Before he can respond, she adds, "you need it very much. Every time I find you, you are up in a tree."

They both resolutely ignore the suggestion of a snort of laughter from the hallway.

"I am - " Hansel shoots a glare at the door. "I am not," he says firmly. "I am a professional."

"And I am an amateur?" she asks sweetly.

He leans forward to prop his chin on his fist. His eyes meet hers, eyebrow arched slightly, and she thinks with a little surprise that he's not at all put off by her sharpness. "Yep," he says impudently.

"Well if you excuse me, I will tell you," she informs him, "I am not sure you are good at your job."

Both eyebrows shoot up. "Excuse me?"

"You cannot tell a white witch from a black witch," she counts off, "you get stuck in trees, you cannot swim - "

" - not a fan of water - "

" - even when it is necessary for your health, you go into hysterics over a little healing - "

He mouths the word hysterics, apparently struck wordless by this affront.

" - and now, you cannot even say a proper thank you," she finishes. And then she smiles at him.

Gretel is retreating down the hall in an effort to be marginally discreet. Her laughter tells them so.

"Thank you," Hansel says deliberately, his eyes narrow, "for saving my life."

Mina smiles. Her weariness is already creeping up again, the momentary exertion of irritation draining all her scant resources. "Good," she says. "I am glad you're all right, Hansel."

He looks at her for a long minute like he can't quite figure her out, but his eyes are as soft in their confusion as they were in the pool, his head cocked to one side and his mouth tender and startled under hers.

"Yeah," he says. He rises from the chair and bends to her. His lips brush her forehead. "I'm glad you're okay, too."

Mina falls asleep with a smile on her face.

_iii_

"I didn't even know you had a wand," he says abruptly.

"Of course you didn't." It's been two weeks since she first woke up. Mina is standing above a massive, bubbling black pot, stirring the substance within absently. "It was a weapon to you, and one you did not like. Besides," she shrugs one shoulder. "A wand is very personal."

Hansel's hands pause in lacing up his boots. She's outside, before a stony little cottage they're occupying for their latest job. Edward rumbles off to the side as Gretel talks to him in a low voice, and Hansel is finishing outfitting before they head off to take on a witch.

Mina purses her lips.

"We weren't personal?" he asks.

Mina's momentarily serious thoughts blow away like leaves in the wind. She bites her lip to contain her smile. "What," she says, "because I saved your life, because we made love? That's personal, yes. It's not wand personal."

"Hunh," Hansel says. The man can be obtuse at times, but at other times he's startling perceptive. She wonders if he's coming to a conclusion about her or incorporating it into his witch killing repertoire.

She's startled when he taps his knuckles absently against the edge of the cauldron. It was used for laundry by the previous residents, she thinks. Now it will be used to make a trap. "Your wand broke," he says.

A pang shoots through her. "Yes," she says, wistfully.

"Are you going to make a new one?"

Mina bends to collect from her bag of carefully cordoned supplies. "Yes," she says, and scattered herbs from her fingers. "In time."

"Okay," he says. She looks up at him and he cocks his head, looking back. Really looking at her. His response is as simple and practical as ever, but he's not leaving. "It really bothers you, doesn't it," he says.

Mina wipes her hand against her skirt. "I feel naked without it," she says.

His eyes search her face. He nods shortly. "What do you need?" he asks.

She blinks at him, and affection suffuses her. "A certain time of year," she says. "Special ingredients. I have been collecting them already," she says, a little cautiously.

"Makes sense," he says, so easy with it she smiles at him.

"Hansel," she says.

He focuses on her face quizzically.

"I am..." She searches for words. "I am very glad you came to Augsburg. I am glad we met."

"Well, they would have burned you alive," he says. She narrows her eyes at him, catching the teasing undertone in his voice.

"Yes," she says. "I am glad for that as well."

"Mina," he says, and she kisses him. He goes still under her mouth, under her fingers on his chin, and then his lips move in a warm, subtle kiss. She taught him that. He is a good student.

When she draws back his pupils are dilated. He looks a little ruffled, even though she touched him so lightly. It makes Mina smile again. "Go on," she says. "Your sister is waiting."

The look he gives her is close to baleful. Mina laughs, and Gretel's tone is full of mirth when she shouts, "hurry up, Hansel! We're burning dayligh!"

"We'll finish this conversation," he promises.

"Oh, I'll be finished by the time you get home," she says lightly, industriously going back to stirring her pot full of ingredients. He gets the entendre the way she wants him too; she can tell by the way his feet skid a little in the fallen leaves.

She doesn't stop smiling all the while she's painting trees with the sticky mess of magic.

(iv)

She wakes up when he slips into her bed.

He's still wearing trousers, so not too presumptuous. He doesn't wake her with a kiss, just touches her arm with his fingertips. Mina rolls over, raking her long hair away from her face, and picks out the glint of his eyes in the dark.

"Why did they accuse you?" he asks out of the blue.

It is not the topic she would have chosen to open with, especially when slipping unannounced into someone's bed. But she answers it nonetheless. "I was an outcast," she says. "A young woman, living alone. I made money from herbal remedies and eggs from my chicken. Men like that - people like that - are discomfited by the unfamiliar, and they did not like my place."

His brows pulled together. "It wasn't magic?"

"Hansel," she says gently, "a white witch never harms humans with magic. We cannot afford to ever be caught doing magic, because we will never be able to defend ourselves."

His face looks hard in the dark. His jaw tightens.

Softly, she says, "why do you think Edward stays so close to Gretel?"

He blinks and looks back at her; she can see his face move in the almost-light. "She saved his life," he says. "He saved hers."

"Yes," Mina agrees. "But witches and trolls...worked well together. We learned to care for each other. They're as intimately connected to the earth as we are. We make a good unit."

Hansel makes a face. "He turned on Muriel pretty easy." There's no suspicion in his tone, though.

"Black witches have never been a proper part of that circuit," she says, and yawns. It is really too late to be adjusting his worldview adequately. She slides her hand over his. "They take and take and take and they cycle nothing back, neither to the world nor to its people. Whatever connection they might forge is stunted, a malnourished thing."

"You don't have a troll," he says quietly.

Mina sighs. "Humans kill them," she replies. After a second she adds, "I did once."

His hand twitches under hers. "You did?"

"Oh, yes." Her voice is colourless in the dark, weary. "He was young. We both were. He was an easier target."

Hansel is very quiet in the dark. It's not a happy quiet, but he isn't angry with her. Mina squeezes his hand gently. "I survived," she adds simply. She doesn't tell him she feels shame for that sometimes. She doesn't tell him that she spent hours weeping over his body, pouring every ounce of healing magic into him. She doesn't tell him she broke her first wand that way. She doesn't tell him that if she ever could have turned black, that would have been when. Maybe someday she'll tell them, but not tonight.

Voice hard, Hansel says, "well now you have us."

Mina is stunned into silence. She grips his hand tightly and licks her lips. "Hansel," she says, and her voice almost breaks. "What a terribly foolish thing to say. You're not to die for me."

"Hell," he says. "Nobody said anything about dying. We'll just take the fuckers down before they get that far. Also, you're a hypocrite."

Offended, Mina begins, "it is a white witch's duty to - "

He bends to her, close enough to kiss, and she stops talking. "Yeah," he says, "my sister and I have never been great at listening to orders."

Mina wordlessly clutches at his bare shoulders and he kisses her for real.

Moving together with Hansel this time is very different. When he's inside of her he moves slowly and surely; it's his hands that are greedy, his mouth searching down her throat, his fingers gripping her hips and her ass and tipping her pelvis up. He wants to find the right rhythm, the right angle, and Mina can't tell him that it's been so long since she was touched anything feels so good it's unreal. He wouldn't listen anyway; he'd just search for the height of unreal.

"Hansel - " she gasps, sweat soaked and trembling, arching into the hard scarred line of his body, "have you been practising somewhere else?"

He gives a muffled laugh into her throat. "You taught me," he promises.

Her eyelashes flutter as slick, blunt and callused fingertips slid between her thighs to where they're joined. "I do not recall teaching you that," she croaks, and he thrusts hard. Her back bows off the bed.

"You did," he says. "You were very clear on the point. You just weren't coherent."

She can feel light budding behind her eyelids. She doesn't want to scare him away, but he knows what she is and his hands are firm on her body, dragging her to meet him as she plants her hands against the wall. "You are insufferable," she pants. She can loosen her iron grip on control a little, she thinks. Wood whispers under her fingers, and she knows tiny leaf stalks are curling around her thumb.

He smiles against her breast. "I live to serve."

(v)

Gretel is bleeding under Mina's hands, and Mina is on the verge of panic.

Mina has been healing since she was a child. It was the first full fledged act of magic her mother taught her. It taught discipline, dedication and attention to detail, and her mother had felt it would encourage her to remember compassion and discretion.

For all her life, she has been mending wounds and illness. So why, why, why now is she frozen and frightened? Now, when she needs her calm the most.

She can hear Edward roaring, and she can imagine his panic all to clearly. She felt it once, herself. She is feeling it again. The raw magic she used to hold herself to life is impossible now; she could burn right through Gretel and kill her on the spot. Mina's magic does not belong to Gretel's body, and it does not know her boundaries.

Hansel collapses to his knees beside them. He's blood spattered, vicious, and white and shocked as a child in the face of tragedy. "Mina," he rasps. She heard him screaming his throat raw with his sister's name in the midst of the vicious fight.

Her hands are almost shaking. Gretel's dark hair pools on the leaves below her head and her face is slack and too still, as though Mina's lost her already. "My satchel - " Mina orders, and he dumps it beside her.

"It is bad," she whispers. "It is as bad - " She hunches over Gretel's body until her breath stirs Gretel's eyelashes. "Please, Gretel, wake. Listen to me." Gretel can save herself, Mina is sure. Gretel would be stronger than Mina if she ever embraced her heritage.

"You did it before," he snarls furiously.

"She has to do it," Mina snaps. "I can't; she must do it herself." When she spares a glance at his face, his expression borders on numbly uncomprehending. But he'll listen, and she can explain later.

Mina reaches inside of herself, her wand jutting through her fingers. She summons the raw crackle of power and presses her hand to Gretel's chest, calling. I know you're there, she says gently. Come out and see me, please.

A stronger breath whispers out of Gretel's mouth. She could be imagining it - she could be - but she doesn't think she is.

"Come on," she croons, dangerously close to slipping into her mother's native tongue. "We are waiting for you. Come home."

Gretel's ribs expand, delicately.

Mina feels the spark ignite, unfurling like a flower. Gretel has no wand - Mina can feel her fumble instinctively for the warmth of Mina's, slipping off of it but roused further with every effort - but Mina doesn't have Muriel's magic to contend with, only the grievous wound to her flesh. It should be enough. It has to be enough.

Hansel's worry vibrates through her. The painful budding prickles of Gretel's alien magic lances over every inch of her skin, even though Mina released her. Mina concentrates, a conduit between brother and sister, her skin humming with adrenaline and the magic pulsing in the air.

"Hold on to her," she whispers, even though Hansel will not understand the words, not as a witch would understand them. "Don't let go."

Hansel's arm settles around her, holding her up. "Okay," he says. He doesn't understand, but she can feel him holding onto them both and when she wraps her fingers around Gretel's wrists, ignoring the stinging of their unacquainted magics coming into contact, she thinks his sister feels it too.

She can feel Gretel coming back, enchantment rushing out to feel drained, pallid limbs. She can feel _Gretel_ rushing up from an abyss.

"Yes," Mina says aloud, hot tears slipping down her cheeks. Hansel tenses beside her, afraid to assume, and then Gretel's eyes flutter open.

Hansel's arms clutch tightly around Mina. "Hell," he exhales, and then he reaches for his sister's face.

Mina slides when his grip leaves her, wavering and catching herself above Gretel's face with her hands digging into dirt. Gretel's deep eyes slowly come fully open and Gretel breathes out unsteadily. She still sounds raw and painful, but the breath is going and going.

"You did it," Mina breathes, and Gretel reaches up a wondering hand and touches Mina's cheek. Beside them Edward collapses to his knees, shaking the earth. Mina had been so blinded by panic she hadn't even seen him beside them.

"You did it," Hansel repeats, and seizes Mina in a rough half-hug, his stubble scraping through sweaty tendrils of hair. She laughs giddily, shoulders quaking, hand flying to her mouth.

 _Oscar,_ she thinks warmly, _I did it._ It's hard not to remember a clearing a little like this, blood all over her hands a little like this. But this time she isn't alone, and this time they won.

Hansel rears up from where his forehead had been pressed to Gretel's and kisses her temple, still rough in his exuberance. Gretel answers Edward, his voice an indistinct rumble to Mina's ears and hers an insubstantial whisper.

All she can feel is the warm of Hansel's arm around her shoulders, and the warmth of Gretel's hands in hers. All she can hear is the new, strong, beautiful heartbeat.

Gretel squeezes her hands, drawing Mina's gaze. "Thank you," she says. "You saved my life."

Mina shakes her head, smiling wordlessly. "I am glad," she says, "that I was here."


End file.
